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Evolution of a lawsuit

Effort to add creationism to curriculum likely to cost Ohio school district plenty

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The push to teach creationism is
brewing in southern Ohio, an effort that might be brushed aside as a considerable waste of time and
legal fees if not for a propitious political climate that could ignite the debate statewide.

Two school-board members in Springboro, an affluent community midway between Cincinnati and
Dayton, still need a third vote to have the support of the five-member board. But the
Dayton Daily News reports the district’s curriculum director has been asked to look at how
to infuse creationism into the school district’s coursework as “supplemental” instruction.

The Springboro superintendent, who thinks this is a bad idea, is right.

Teaching “creation science” would imperil taxpayers, who would be dragged into a costly legal
fight, as well as students, whose education would be hobbled by being taught theology as science.
Teaching creationism does not further the understanding of biology any more than a horoscope
explains astronomy.

Creationism simply is not science. Science concerns itself solely with the natural world and its
processes. The supernatural is beyond its charge. Creationism is based on supernatural
explanations, which are untestable and, therefore, not scientific, since testing and
experimentation are the essence of science.

Science seeks explanations. Creationism begins with the conclusion. C.A. Colson, a chemist and
devout Christian, spoke to this point when, in the 1950s, he said, “When we come to the
scientifically unknown, our correct position is not to rejoice because we have found God; it is to
become better scientists.”

This is not to discount faith. Many scientists who strongly defend the teaching of evolution see
religion and science as compatible. Who is to say, they ask, that God didn’t create the conditions
for evolution?

There is no question that those who believe in creationism are sincere. They believe their
children are being led astray, and that, taught evolution, they will question the very bedrock of
their family’s faith.

Kelly Kohls, a Springboro board member pushing for creationism in the classroom, said she is
doing so as a concerned parent.

“Creationism is a significant part of the history of this country,” she told the Dayton paper, “
It is an absolutely valid theory and to omit it means we are omitting part of the history of this
country.”

She could take a lesson from another small community that exposed its students to “intelligent
design,” a kind of creationism dressed up to look more scientific.

In 2004, the Dover, Pa., school board ordered teachers to read a statement to high-school
biology students suggesting Darwin’s theory of evolution could be wrong and that, given that life
is so complex, it must have been designed by an intelligent agent.

Teachers refused to comply. Parents who opposed a religion-based curriculum sued. A year later,
a federal court barred the district from presenting intelligent design as an alternative theory or
disparaging the scientific theory of evolution. This cost the Dover school board $1 million in
legal fees and damages.

U.S. District Judge John E. Jones III wrote, “The students, parents, and teachers of the Dover
Area School District deserved better than to be dragged into this legal maelstrom, with its
resulting utter waste of monetary and personal resources.”

Kohls and fellow Springboro school board member Scott Anderson are backed by Jo Ellen Myers, a
member of the South-Western City Schools board. She thinks creationism should be taught with
evolution.

She said evolution is based on a theory that can’t be proven. That is false. It has been tested
and observed frequently: Germs, for example, mutate to resist antibiotics. The fossil record and
genetics validate evolution.

Those aiming to return creationism to the classroom should recall what happened to the Dover
board members, all of whom were ousted in the 2005 election.